Ana

Her ads in DDI and other bdsm publications of the time were striking. Tall, dark, and rail thin, her hips flared in the simple black corsets she seemed fond of wearing. Sometimes her thick black hair was down, wildly entwining her shoulders as she brandished a cane, almost saying, "Call me, and we'll see how much you can take." In other photos her hair was severerly tied back in a bun, completely hidden by her riding helmet. Instead of jodhpurs and a white shirt, she wore a skin tight, black body suit and real riding boots. I recall being facinated by how such a slender woman's hips burst so curvaceously from her waspy waist.

Her name was Ana Hunt.

Long before I called her and made an appointment for a little slice of heaven, I was riveted by her simple, challenging ads. She oozed sex and experience. I had just turned forty and she was, as she eventually told me, "my senior". After being every kind of lousy, unreliable, bothersome version of wanker/no show client known to domme-dom, I finally made an appointment on a cold November weeknight when I had been out of town all day and had a custom made excuse as to why I'd be late home.

She had a beautiful, private studio in a brownstone in Chelsea. It was dark and each room had wonderful wooden bookcases filled with leather, hard cover, volumes on any subject one might imagine. She had a slightly European, not of this country air to her. She was at once welcoming and menacing - inviting but simmeringly sadistic. I had taken to writing out an explanation of where I was and what I was looking for from my domme. I was often so overwhelmed by desire and nerves that I'd find it hard to articulate my ever-so-demandingly-client-centric wish list. I delivered my creative top her from the bottom entreaty on my knees as she watched me; an amused, barely tolerant, grin pursing her full, red painted lips. When I finished she sat silently.

"I understand you," she said softly. "You write very well."

"Here," she beckoned as she stood. I took her extended hand. "Let's start you out over here in the next room".

She led me from what felt like a wood paneled, library-living room, into a darkened bedroom. The bed, however, was a massive, antique, wooden bondage table. Four huge posts extended upward from each corner. The table was lusterously polished but appropriately worn from the struggles of those captured in Ana's thrall. The four vertical anchor points strained vainly toward the ceiling.

"Go on, sweetheart", she entreated me indulgently. "You know how to lie on your back for me, don't you?"

Like a memory that drifts unexpectedly into focus, I'll wonder every now and then what ever became of Ana Hunt, world class domina, gone now - never to come back.